In My Kitchen – August 2013

Welcome to another addition of In My Kitchen, the brain child of dear Celia from Fig Jam and Lime Cordial.

I love these posts, they’re my favourite and I have to confess, I do deliberate all month over what I’m going to post. What do I have in my kitchen thats ‘interesting’

Keeping up this blog has been particularly challenging this month. I quit my job, completed a hand over, started a new job, completed training and along the way have been dealing with a ‘terrible two’ who is the perfect child in the eyes of my parents but turns into a little devil when we’re home. I digress.

So, In My Kitchen this month are:

Ghar Soap (Aleppo Soap)

My husband, while Armenian in background was born in Aleppo, Syria. The only soap that he has ever know growing up was Ghar soap, a pure and natural soap from his home town made from olive and bay leaves (olive oil and laurel oil).  He has converted me into using this hard block soap, and I have never looked back since realising the healing properties and seeing it first hand on my dermatitis and psoriasis prone skin.

I am very anti ‘aniti-bacterial’ soaps, liquid soaps, and chemical ridden products in the kitchen and bathroom. More so now since being a mother and reading the unnecessarily long list of chemicals in ‘natural’ and ‘gentle’ soaps and baby products.

A fun fact is that unlike most soaps, Ghar soap will float in water!

You can buy Ghar soap in all Middle Eastern specialty stores and deli’s.

In My Kitchen:

Heston Blumenthal ‘From Waitrose’ Chocolate Sauce

My beautiful friend Lucinda kindly offered to bring dessert at a luncheon I recently hosted and brought this deliciousness in a jar that is Heston’s chocolate sauce with a punnet of strawberries. You pop the jar into the microwave for a few minutes and out comes the most delicious, rich and indulgent dipping sauce for your choice of fruit, marshmallows etc. The sauce is strangely dairy free, instead, being based on a wheat glucose syrup making it suitable for vegans too. The ingredients also contain Madagascan dark chocolate, cocoa liquor, cocoa powder, sea salt and espresso natural flavouring.

While the sugar content is very high, the dark chocolate is quite bitter, creating a lovely balance of flavours neither bitter nor sweet.

The jar calls for it to be eaten ‘hot or cold’ however you would need a shovel to excavate the chocolate if you attempt to eat it cold. It solidifies stiff and isn’t as pleasant to eat. Go hot, gooey and yummy 😉

In My Kitchen:

Ceramic Egg Holder

I’ve always wanted a ceramic egg holder, since seeing one somewhere. I can’t for the life of me remember where I saw it first, perhaps a blog, magazine or shop front but since then I have been looking high and low for one. No such luck until I walked into the fashion store Sussan to buy myself some winter pj’s and there, in a clothes store of all places was this beauty. Best of all, it was marked down on the clearance table to $4.00!

In My Kitchen:

Caramel Lebanese Coffee

I don’t drink a lot of coffee at home. I’m very much a tea person, but every now and then I crave a hot, sludge and sandy Lebanese coffee. A 1kg bag of Caramel brand coffee lives in our freezer and makes the most delicious brew.

It is made on the cookstove, traditionally for every cup of water, you add one teaspoon of coffee and one teaspoon of sugar. Bring it to the boil and make sure you ‘catch it’. By that I mean once it starts boiling, it rapidly rises to the surface and you will have a royal mess if you don’t remove the pot straight away. The coffee is not filtered so at the end of your glass you will have the ‘sand’ which is not drinkable.

Enjoy it with a piece of baklava when you’re in need for a sweet hit 😉

And there you have another edition of IMK, this month, August 2013!

Check out my previous In My Kitchen posts here

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